The Break In
Here, I sit in solitary confinement. It was an easy caper. It should have been simple. There was no need to break in; the doors and rooms were always open.
Yeah, the box was locked, but I’d been able to find the key to it before. It was a question of just closing my eyes and opening them while her back was turned. It helped to be in the same room where she hid the key. She wasn’t very smart. She always hid the key in the same location. Besides, if I didn’t see her hide the key, all I had to do was follow the girls. They also had a way of finding the key.
If I was lucky and got to the box first, I could take what I wanted. If I saw the girls doing the same thing, I just played the innocent if the owner suspected me and questioned me.
“I saw one of the girls opening the box,” was an easy answer when questioned. The owner never realized that I hadn’t answered the question asked of me.
Like I said, it should have been easy if it wasn’t for that damn cat.
I waited until everyone was in their rooms. The doors were shut, so I couldn’t tell if the occupants were asleep or not. But it was late enough that I believed they all were.
I quietly moved to the dresser in the bedroom, opened the top drawer, and searched out the key. Once in my possession, I stealthily moved through the halls of their apartment, went to the kitchen, and through the curtain that hid the dining room and the box. It was a 1950s-old-style refrigerator. Clearly, food was valuable to this family. With its lock in place, the chain around the refrigerator protected whatever valuables were being hidden. I carefully opened the lock and let the chain down slowly, not making a sound.
The milk bottle was in the way, so I picked it up and placed it gently on the kitchen counter. There, left on the shelf, was precisely what I was looking for – The jar of maraschino cherries. I grabbed the jar, opened it up, took one of the cherries out, and let it glide into my mouth. The flavor was exquisite. I knew that I should only have taken one, I mean, who’s going to notice one missing? But that taste was too much to ignore. I craved another one. And that was my big mistake. I hadn’t noticed the cat that had leaped onto the kitchen counter and was eyeing the milk bottle with much interest. All it took was one push of its paw to send the bottle crashing to the ground, leaving bits of glass and milk all over the floor.
I never had a chance. Within seconds, I heard a rushing of footsteps down the hall. When the curtain was pulled back, there were my parents. I was standing with a recently opened refrigerator that was supposed to be locked, an open jar of maraschino cherries in my hand, broken glass, and a milky mess on the floor, and no cat in sight to be seen.
They didn’t even have to ask for an explanation. I was the only suspect, guilty as charged. And I couldn’t even blame it on Ronald.
So, here I sit, grounded for a week. The lock on the refrigerator has been changed. It no longer needs a key. I’m forced to do dishes every night, and they are making me pay for the milk out of my allowance.
My sisters, who I know do the same thing that I was doing but haven’t been caught yet, get away with it, and they just laugh at me. Someday, I will get even with them. Just wait until I turn eight years old.
